Cairo aspires to maintain trilateral coordination with Amman & Baghdad, President El-Sisi tells Jordanian PM
Cairo is looking forward to increasing the ongoing coordination with Jordan at the bilateral level, and within the framework of the two countries’ trilateral cooperation mechanism with Iraq, President Abdel-Fattah El-Sisi told Jordanian Prime Minister Bisher Al-Khasawneh on Thursday.
El-Sisi received PM Al-Khasawneh, who is on an official visit to the Egyptian capital. Prime Minister Mostafa Madbouly and head of Egypt’s General Intelligence Service Abbas Kamel attended the meeting, according to a statement by presidential spokesperson Bassam Rady.
During the meeting, El-Sisi described Egypt-Jordan relations as historical and close, the statement added.
The Jordanian prime minister expressed his country’s keenness to continue to coordinate with Egypt on different fronts as well as promote bilateral cooperation in a way that contributes to confronting the joint challenges facing the Arab world.
He added that Egypt is playing a “pivotal” role in the region, the statement added.
The meeting dealt with bilateral cooperation in the fields of energy, combating terrorism and extremist ideology, bolstering economic ties and enhancing trade.
The mechanisms of implementing the ventures agreed upon within the framework of the trilateral cooperation between Egypt, Jordan and Iraq were also tackled during the meeting, which followed a meeting between El-Sisi and Iraq’s Foreign Minister Fouad Hussein in Cairo a day prior.
Egypt, Jordan and Iraq have been pushing for fostering trilateral cooperation in terms of the economy, trade, energy and investment to establish strategic integration between Egypt, Jordan and Iraq.
The three leaders held three trilateral summits to push forward their efforts, the latest of which was held in the Jordanian capital Amman in August 2020. A fourth summit is set to be held soon to follow up on the previous steps.
The meeting also touched upon the latest developments in the regional situations as both countries’ officials agreed to maintain coordination to affirm the principle of a comprehensive political settlement for various disputes and issues in the region.
They also discussed the developments of the peace process in the Middle East in light of the results of the last ministerial meeting of the Arab League on Monday.
The statement added that the officials agreed to work on intensifying international efforts to settle the Palestinian crisis based on international legitimacy resolutions to resume peace negotiations.
Cairo has been in talks with several Western parties to push forward the frozen Israeli-Palestinian peace process. In February 2020, Egypt, along with Jordan, France, and Germany, formed the quartet committee to revive the halted negotiations.
The committee has so far held four meetings, the latest of which was hosted by Cairo earlier this month, where the foreign ministers of the four countries forged 11 provisions detailed in a joint statement outlining the endeavours to revive the peace process.
